Sammy Keyes and the Wedding Crasher (25 page)

There wasn’t a wedding dress in sight.

“I think you were having a nightmare,” she said, stroking my leg through the blanket. “Why were you calling my name?”

I flopped back down and panted for a minute. “I don’t remember,” I lied. Then I sat up a little and asked, “What time is it?”

“It’s after nine. I’ve been here for about an hour. You must’ve been exhausted.”

Now, the couch is plenty small enough without someone sitting on it while you’re trying to sleep.

No wonder I’d been having bad dreams.

And then I saw
why
she was sitting there instead of the chair—so she could get a better view of herself on TV.

The sound was barely on, but still, there was a
Lords
tape running.

I wanted to shove her off with my feet. Get her away from me. But then she scooped up my feet and put them in her lap. “Better?” she asked.

I grunted and closed my eyes, trying to give her a hint.

Which, of course, she didn’t take. “I heard you’ve been catching up on
Lords
,” she said, her focus on the TV. “I appreciate that.”

I grunted again, sneaking a peek at her through slits in my lids.

“Oh, this is the scene right before Jason got hurt.” She leaned forward a little and shook her head. “Poor guy.”

“Are you talking about Jason Kruger?” Grams asks, handing my mother a cup of tea. Then she sits down in the chair with a cup of her own and says, “I was wondering why they’d replaced him—he was so good!”

So my mom tells her, “A light fell on him and crushed a bone in his shoulder.”

Grams gasps. “That’s terrible! Will he be coming back?”

“He’s supposed to, but it’s obviously taking a while. I heard they’re having to do another surgery.”

“So what happens in the meantime?” Grams asks, sipping from her tea. “If something like that were to happen to you, how would you make ends meet?”

Lady Lana does a regal little nod. “It’s a good question. And in a way he’s lucky it happened at work. If he’d been
hurt at home, he’d be in real trouble. But since it was a workplace injury, he’s still drawing a paycheck.” She picks up the remote to fast-forward to another scene. “Still, I’m sure he’d rather be on-screen than on workman’s comp.”

I sit up a little. “You’re talking about a real person, not a character on the show?”

My mother looks at me. “That’s right.”

“So he got hit by a light in real life? Sounds like something that would happen on your soap.”

She laughs. “Yes, it does.”

“What time do you have to be at the church?” Grams asks me.

“I have to be at Debra’s at eleven.”

My mother’s eyes pop. “Eleven! I thought the wedding wasn’t until two!”

I swing my legs down and sit up, saying, “But I’m a bridesmaid, and I’m supposed to be helping out.”

“Is she still orange?” Grams asks.

“Pretty much, yeah.”

My mother rolls her eyes and shakes her head. Like, Wow, how stupid can a bride-to-be be? But Grams tisks and says, “Poor dear.”

I stand up and say, “Anyway, I’d better take a shower.” I look at my mom. “Thanks for visiting.”

It came out kinda sarcastic. I didn’t
mean
for it to, but it did. And c’mon. Who could blame me? We’d talked about her soap and some guy she works with who’d been hit by a light and was now getting paid for staying home. Another thrilling conversation orbiting around Lana’s World.

As usual.

And, really, I wasn’t expecting her to hang around while I took a shower and dried my hair, but when I stepped out of the bathroom, there she still was.

“I thought it would be fun to help get you ready,” she says, and that’s when I notice that the kitchen table is covered with makeup and mirrors and hair spray bottles and curling irons. There are three curling irons, all different sizes.

“Uh, that’s
nice
,” I say, trying to be diplomatic, “but I’m not into that.”

“Oh, come on,” she coos. “Just a little.”

“Uh … thanks, but no.”

Grams is standing behind her, giving me granny signals with her face and her hands telling me to sit down and let my mother have at my face with her pots of paint.

“No!” I snap at her, which makes my mother turn around and say, “She doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to.” Then my mother looks back at me and says, “We could just do your hair?”

Well, I’d feel like a real brat saying no to that, so I plop in a chair and shrug. “If you really want to.”

Her face gets all … sparkly. “So, what’s your dress like? Simple? Elaborate? Clean lines? Frilly?”

I scowl. “It’s lavender.”

“Lavender?”

“Mm-hmm. And it’s”—I ruffle my hands around me—“poufy and frilly.”

She and Grams exchange grins as she says, “Okay, then!”

So for the next twenty minutes she sprays and curls and clacks those irons around my head. And it seems so ridiculous that we’re not talking about anything
real
, but I don’t want to start a fight with her by asking about my father or how she thinks she can be in love with a guy she can’t trust with her secrets. So I just sit there.

And, really, I can’t believe it can take so long to do someone’s hair, so I finally pick up a mirror, and when I see myself, I jump out of my seat. “I look like Little Bo Peep!”

She laughs and takes away the mirror, then pushes me back into the chair. “You won’t when I’m done with you, I promise.”

So I just sit there some more while she clacks and combs and sprays and rats, and when she’s finally all done, she presents me with the mirror and says, “Well?”

I just blink at myself for a minute. She’s put my hair
up
, with a little bump at the back, but there are long, soft ringlets coming down at my temples and at the nape of my neck, and she’s pinned in fake pearls here and there.

“It would look so much more balanced,” she says, “with just a
little
makeup. Maybe a wisp of mascara?” And before I know it, she’s whipped out the mascara tube.

Now, I would have just stopped her, but as she’s unscrewing the brush, she says, “I really wish you’d patch things up with Casey. There’s no reason we both can’t be happy, you know. Even if the circumstances are a little … 
unusual
.” The brush rakes through my lashes, and she says, “He’s miserable, and there’s no reason for it.”

I push her hand away. “He’s not miserable! He told me to quit calling him!”

Her perfect skinny eyebrows arch way up. “He told me
you
broke up with
him
.”

“I did not! I called him over and over, and he never called me back. And finally he sent me a text and told me to quit bugging him.”

The mascara brush hovers in the air a moment before it comes toward my other eye’s lashes. And I want to slap it away, but my mom gives me a stern look and says, “You’d look ridiculous with only one eye done.”

So I let her swoop through my other lashes, and while she’s doing that, she says, “A text, huh? To one of your friend’s phones?”

“Yeah. Dot’s. But it would be nice if I could have my
own
phone.”

She pretends not to hear that last bit. “And when was this?”

I think back. “On Tuesday.”

She pulls away a little. “This past Tuesday?”

“Yeah.”

She pushes the mascara brush back inside its tube and screws it closed. “That’s odd. Warren just took both Casey and Heather out for new phones. Seems Casey lost his during the move, and there was some issue with Heather’s.”

“During the move?” I ask, blinking my sticky eyelashes at her.

She’s coming at my face with a blush brush. “Mmm-hmm.”

My brain is rewinding at lightning speed. “That was last weekend.”

She nods, pushing the brush against one cheek, then the other.

“But then—” And that’s when I remember. “What was that message you told Grams to give me? Something about a note? That I didn’t have to write that note?”

“He showed it to me,” she said, looking through her lipsticks and glosses.

“What did it
say
?”

“That you didn’t want to see him anymore.”

“No!” I cry, jumping out of my seat. “I never wrote him a note!”

A lipstick comes at my mouth like a homing missile. “It looked like your handwriting to me.”

“But it wasn’t!”

“Hold still!”

And that’s when it hits me—Heather!

I collapse into the seat, and while my mother’s busy painting my lips, everything’s snapping together in my head:

My missing homework in Vince’s class—Heather must’ve taken it from the in-basket for a sample of my writing!

Casey not answering his phone or calling me back—Heather probably stole it the weekend he’d moved in. All this time,
she’d
had his phone!

And the text—Heather sent it!

And Heather spying on us through Hudson’s window—she hadn’t followed us home, she hadn’t even
been at school that day. She’d done a reverse lookup after Marissa had left Casey a message!

“Oh my God,” I mumble. “Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod!” I jump up. “It was Heather! Heather stole his phone! Heather sent that text! Heather forged that note. It was Heather!”

My mother looks shocked. “Are you sure?”

I snort. “Oh, I am
so
sure.”

“But … I have to say—she’s been very nice to me.”

“Well, watch your back.”

Grams nods. “That girl is vicious, Lana. You have no idea.”

“Well,” my mother says, “regardless of how it happened, if this is all some big misunderstanding, you need to call Casey. Call him right now.”

Trouble is, he has a new number, and I don’t know what it is. So Mom tries to call Warren to get it from him, but his phone rolls over to voice mail.

She leaves a message, but after fifteen minutes of him not calling back, she takes a deep breath and says, “I’m loath to call Candi”—then she looks at me—“but I will.”

“Really?” It seemed a very
brave
thing for her to volunteer to do. And believe me, my mother does not do brave well. Or often. “You have her cell number?”

“No, but let’s try their house.” And after looking it up, she very calmly punches the number into her cell phone.

Too bad for her, Heather’s the one who answers.

“Good morning, Heather,” my mom says sweetly. “Does your brother happen to be around?”

She shakes her head at me, relaying that Heather said no.

“How about your father?” Then she adds, “Or your mother?”

Another shake, and then, “Do you have your mother’s or brother’s cell numbers? Maybe I can reach them that way. It’s pretty important.”

But of course Heather’s not about to give them up, so after another short minute, my mom says, “Well, thanks anyway,” and clicks off.

“Of course she knows them!” Grams snaps.

“And now she knows yours, too,” I say, looking at my mother.

My mom gives me a puzzled look. “Is that a problem?”

I snort and shake my head. “Oh, you have no idea.”

But at the rate things were going, it wouldn’t be too long before she did.

Casey’s dad still hadn’t called by the time I had to leave. And since my mom had been dropped off at the Senior Highrise, and since my grams doesn’t have a car, I grabbed my skateboard and made for the door.

Trouble is, Grams steps in the way. “Wait a minute,” she says. “Why don’t we call Hudson to give you a ride?”

“Because I’m already late!”

“You can’t ride a skateboard there,” my mother says. “Your hair will be completely ruined!”

“It’ll be
fine
. It’s, like, shellacked.”

And, really, Mrs. Tweeter would be happy, ’cause I have, like,
helmet
hair. But my mother produces a red silk scarf and whips it over my head. “There,” she says as she ties it under my chin. “That will keep it from blowing away.”

“I am not wearing this!” I tell her as I try to untie it. “I look like Red Riding Hood!”

“Oh, you do not!” She smiles her movie-star smile. “Red Riding Hood did not wear jeans, and she did not ride a skateboard.”

“Well, she should have,” I grumble, fumbling with what is now a knot under my chin.

Grams hurries in with my sweatshirt. “Here,” she says. “Put this on over.”

“It’s
hot
outside!”

“Just wear it,” Grams says, and before I know it, she has my arms in and the hood up over the silk scarf. “Just tie it, and no one will even notice.”

Both of them are blocking the door, and I know I’m not getting out of the apartment without protecting my foo-foo hairdo. So I grumble, “Oh, good grief,” and tie down the hood. “There. You happy? Now can I please go?”

They step aside, and after we’re sure the hallway’s clear, I zip over to the fire escape door, slip outside, then charge down the steps and
out
of there.

I actually thought about going by the Acostas’. I mean, knowing Heather, Casey
was
at home. Probably in the room right next door to where she’d been lying to my mom through her teeth.

My ridiculous hair is what stopped me.

That and the fact that I was already half an hour late.

Anyway, when I get to Debra’s, the door’s half open, so I put my skateboard on the porch and walk right in. And since I’m
hot
, the first thing I do is dump my sweatshirt.

Debra sees me and does a double take. “Sams?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” I grumble, wrestling with the knot under my chin. “Can you undo this thing?”

She comes over and has it off in a flash. “Wow,” she says, taking me in. “I was not expectin’
this
.”

“Blame my mother,” I grumble.

“Oooh, I like your mother!” she says with a laugh, then calls, “Tippy! Brandi! Come here!”

The other two bridesmaids appear and start making a fuss. And with their blond hairdos and the way they’re clucking around me, I feel like I’m cornered by a scary bunch of oversized chicks.

“Hey!” I tell them, backing away. “It’s just hair!” I look around. “Isn’t there work to do?”

“There sure is,” Tippy Toes says. “We are behind on everything!”

Debra checks the clock. “Someone’s got to get over to the church. The flowers and cake are supposed to be delivered any minute.”